Frazz by Jef Mallett for December 21, 2022

I’ll take the hot chocolate. Leave out the marshmallows.

A lot of foods and drinks are not invented out of need.

I love hot chocolate, but give me whipped cream (and maybe a mint leaf) or give me NO garnish. Bleah for marshmallows in hot chocolate. Though YMMV.

When he’s right, he’s right.

I can’t remember the last time I had hot chocolate, with or without marshmallows.

I’ll occasionally add a squirt of Hershey’s syrup and Reddi-Whip to my coffee in the morning. No marshmallows, though.

Happy Winter Solstice, all!

especially if peppermint schnapps were included in the mug!

Hot chocolate would be even better if it were made with eggnog instead of milk. And please don’t be cruel, and make it with water.

For the first time last year I had one of the “chocolate bomb” hot cocoas. I didn’t think I would like it, but it was great! And sweet enough to last me all year..

Two words, “Moose Milk”. Preferably the original RCAF recipe, although the RCN version will do in a pinch.

I don’t remember pumpkin spice stuff from when I was a kid.

Pumpkin spice works with some foods and beverages (I’ve had good pumpkin spice donuts and cappuccinos), but the way it’s exploded into everything over the past decade is definitely a marketing gimmick; there are now pumpkin spice dog treats, for St. Bernard’s sake.

I put ice cream in my hot chocolate. Delicious.

Look, let’s just burn everything down and get right to the end state: Pumpkin-spice-flavored pumpkin spice.

Hot chocolate and marshmallows did come along first. Pumpkin spice was invented in 1934. The Mayans invented hot chocolate roughly 4000 years ago and a Jamaican recipe for it was eventually brought to Europe in the 1700. Marshmallows were invented by the ancient Egyptians and by the 1800s had made its way to France, where confectioners made it a popular treat. It seems unlikely that the two were never combined before 1934.

You can have your marshmallows, your hot chocolate, and your pumpkin-spice everything. All that’s needed is the eggnog. Alcohol-free, but the full-fat version. None of that watered down “lighter,” “healthy” crap. If you’re going to splurge on eggnog, only the real thing is worth splurging on. Make mine Alta Dena from Costco – the best eggnog in the world and the standard by which all others shall be judged. Oh and don’t miss today’s Real Life Adventures strip.

I remember drinking eggnog as a very little kid. Pumpkin spice everything is a fairly recent innovation.

Eggnog has its roots in medieval Europe. Chocolate and pumpkins came from the Americas. Pumpkin spice comes from pumpkin pie ingredients. Eggnog is thus the oldest and pumpkin spice the newest.

“Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can’t remember what they are.” —Matt Lauer, NBC’s Today show

I pass on all three. Not even chocolate can overcome my distaste for hot drinks.

The historic moment when somebody was reaching up in the cupboard for the cocoa and accidentally knocked the bag of marshmallows into the pot of warming milk.

Unfortunately, they never recorded that person’s name.

Eggnog probably came first. (Actually, hot chocolate is technically a contender, but you might not like it the way the Mesoamericans made it.) Hot chocolate has been around quite a while; with marshmallows would be a 20th or 19th century development.

Pumpkin sp!ces have been around a long time, but pumpkin sp!ce everything is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Yeah, no, things don’t work like that. Although I do think egg nogg goes way back.

I remember having hot chocolate with marshmallows long before I ever heard about those other things, and Frazz is right. Don’t need those others.